The media got bored of the Steelers/Seahawks in this long two-week wait, so they naturally turned to T.O./McNabb again. Man, I just mute the TV whenever they talk about this again. This story has been beaten to death. At this point, I honestly don't think anything either could say that would make me feel differently.

I feel that the Eagles have fallen beyond repair. I thought all their problems were going to be closed when the dropped T.O.? Haven't things actually gotten worse or am I the only one that can see this?

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May god have mercy on my enemies because I will not - George S. Patton

I don't know about "fallen beyond repair". This just seems like off-season BS. I'm sure they're all bummed about the outcome of their season and the TO saga after being NFC Champs, and the sucess they've had in the recent past.
Reid will have them ready to rock once camp starts.

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Homer: "All right, brain. You don't like me and I don't like you, but let's just do this and I can get back to killing you with beer."

I agree with the beyond repair idea. Either McNabb has to find a new home, or there are a lot of Eagles who should be looking for new homes and places to work.

While we can debate till the cows come home the hypocrisy of a dude who, just three two years ago was claiming QB color didn't matter being upset about being compared to a white QB (well, maybe not debate it, but discuss it in heightened tones), something really rubbed me the wrong way about the way he described how the team came apart.

I can't help but read it and wonder why the hell he never took TO aside and talked to him. Never grabbed him and punched him.
Now, his team, the guys who are supposed to look up to him, see him for what he really is: an overrated but good QB who has weak leadership skills.
Worse, he's an overrated but good QB with weak leadership skills whose coach is overrated but good and also appears to have weak leadership skills himself.

The thing's a mess. Either they do as poorly next season as Anthony seems to enjoy predicting, or they rally around... I don't know, Jevon Kearse, and win the Super Bowl. In spite of their QB and coach.
Next year is a dangerous year in the career of McNabb. He's lost the respect of at least a portion of the locker room. He no longer has Brad Childress to teach him. Worse, he has Mornhinweg as his OC. Westbrook's health will always be more "how much time will he miss?" than "he should be back next week." There are no top flight WR prospects in free agency (Randle El is a #2, Anthony. I know we agreed that the Falcons overpaid for Peerless Price. If Randle El moves on, let's hope he doesn't get #1 WR money, because he is a #2 receiver, plain and simple) and I'm not immediately aware of game-breaking WRs in the draft. (Greg Lee, from Pitt, is the only one that rushes immediately to my mind.)

If the season goes as poorly as it very well could, Andy Reid could end up as the head coach in Dallas in '07.

I don't know about "fallen beyond repair". This just seems like off-season BS. I'm sure they're all bummed about the outcome of their season and the TO saga after being NFC Champs, and the sucess they've had in the recent past.
Reid will have them ready to rock once camp starts.

1) My logic for saying beyond repair is not only with McNabb and T.O but with the problems in the lockeroom with the players not believing in each other and McNabbs guts, determination, heart, etc... That lockeroom is divided right down the middle. Half the team still has respect for Donovan and want him in Philly but the other half of the team would rather have T.O. still there.

2) Now that Hugh Douglas has come out of nowhere and bashed McNabb, the rest of the team is not going to be far behind. McNabb has lost this team to a point where he might not ever get it back. (and to think, this all started with him getting "tired" at the end of the SB last season) - That is when this team first stopped believing in McNabb.

If you polled the Eagles lockeroom today, it would almost be a split down the middle of who you would rather have, T.O or Donovan?

I agree with Mountaineer Dave, Donovan may be playing in his last season in an Eagle uniform next season.

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May god have mercy on my enemies because I will not - George S. Patton

I think this could all be solved with a simple Culpepper for Mcnabb trade. That would offer two good players a new start. Because I think they have done everything they could where they were and the situation could only get worse for both guys.

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Danny:I haven't even told my father I'm not gonna get that scholarship. I'm gonna end up working in a lumberyard the rest of my life.
Ty:What's wrong with lumber? I own two lumberyards
Danny: notice you don't spend too much time there
Ty:I'm not quite sure where they are

McNabb needs to learn what black on black crime actually is, or, more likely, stop playing games in the media using those terms.

Randle El's role in Philly - if he ever gets there - would differ dramatically from what his role in Pittsburgh has been; where with the Steelers he has been the borderline second/third receiving option on a run-oriented team, with the Eagles he would be the borderline first/second receiving option on a pass-oriented team. Therefore he would be thrown to approximately twice as often. And it isn't as simple as "#1", "#2", etc. - it's about filling a specific need on a particular team: For example, would Brandon Jacobs have gotten anywhere near as many touches this year had he been drafted by any other team besides the Giants? No - because, the year before, the Giants had ranked dead last in the entire NFL at converting 3rd down and less than 2 yards, so Jacobs gave the Giants exactly what they needed, when they needed it; Randle El would do the same for the Eagles.

And what a "role reversal" we have here all of a sudden: Those who are usually positive about the Eagles now seem to be negative - and I have something to say that leans in the opposite direction: If someone like Randle El is brought in, and he produces, come this time next year people will scarcely even remember that T.O. ever played in Philadelphia, since the damage will have been repaired so to speak (if one defines the "damage" as the Eagles suicidally depriving themselves of their only receiving threat by throwing T.O. away).

That said, the Eagles' front office will need to have changed their ways on two key issues in order for it to happen: First, they're going to have to be a lot more generous than they have been up to this point (the Bears, and quite possibly the Vikings as well, are also in the market for a big-play receiver - and Randle El is really the only one who meets that standard among the free agents), and second, they are going to have to discard their already-demonstrated prejudice against shorter receivers (Randle El is listed at a highly dubious 5'10", and is probably closer to 5'8").

The truth is that no NFL team has a larger range of realistic final 2006 results than the Eagles do (I'd say Minnesota has the second largest range); every move - and non-move - they make in the next four months will be placed under a microscope.

And so far as the draft goes, Dave: Santonio Holmes of Ohio State is the real deal, and he will definitely be the first WR selected; but after him things drop off in a hurry, with Demetrius Williams of Oregon and Martin Nance from Miami of Ohio currently battling it out for second on most mock draft lists - but if either of them go in the first round at all it figures to be very late (this could, of course, change between now and draft day - especially if someone does real well at the scouting combine in a few weeks). Trailing them at the moment are Derek Hagan of Arizona State (who really wouldn't be a very good fit for the Eagles) and Sinorice Moss from Miami of Florida (who would be an awesome fit - if the Eagles can put aside their fixation with height).

As for Andy Reid, my money is on him becoming the first head coach of the Los Angeles expansion team whose creation is quite literally getting more likely by the minute as one existing NFL team after another drops out of consideration for moving there (remember that Reid is a Los Angeles native). It may very well turn out the same way the Dom Capers sitaution in Houston did (he was hired more than a full year before the Texans actually began play). If the L.A. team joins the league in 2008 (the networks' unilaterally-imposed "deadline" for the return of the NFL to that city) after the owners approve it in the spring of 2007, Reid could be hired by that summer (if indeed he doesn't survive the 2006 season with the Eagles).

What I would absolutely love is to see happen is a "trade" between the Los Angeles team and the Eagles, with Jeffiey Lurie (who made his money as a Hollywood producer) assuming ownership of the L.A. team and the Eagles getting a new owner (at a guess, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, who is known to be interested in buying an NFL team); and keep in mind that there are two precedents for something like this: In baseball in 1961, when the pre-existing Washington Senators moved to Minnesota and became the Twins, and were replaced in the nation's capital by an expansion team (which stayed in D.C. for eleven years before becoming the Texas Rangers); and the 1972 "trade" of the Rams and Colts between Carroll Rosenbloom and Bob Irsay, even though the players, coaches etc. did not move.

Randle El's role in Philly - if he ever gets there - would differ dramatically from what his role in Pittsburgh has been; where with the Steelers he has been the borderline second/third receiving option on a run-oriented team, with the Eagles he would be the borderline first/second receiving option on a pass-oriented team. Therefore he would be thrown to approximately twice as often. And it isn't as simple as "#1", "#2", etc

I don't think Randle-El can be thrown to double the amount of times that he gets thrown to in Pittsburgh. I just don't think he's good enough of a receiver to handle it.

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And what a "role reversal" we have here all of a sudden: Those who are usually positive about the Eagles now seem to be negative -

Wait, what? People who don't want Randle-El on the Eagles aren't negative to the Eagles. People who don't want Randle-El on the Eagles don't think he is good enough. I'm not sure where you're getting this role reversal from. Especially when it regards Antwan Randle El of all people.

Wait, what? People who don't want Randle-El on the Eagles aren't negative to the Eagles. People who don't want Randle-El on the Eagles don't think he is good enough. I'm not sure where you're getting this role reversal from. Especially when it regards Antwan Randle El of all people.

If not Randle El, then who?

Reggie Wayne - who is likely to be franchised by the Colts; and even if he isn't, lacks the speed the Eagles so desperately need and will probably cost about 8X as much as Randle El?

Eric Moulds - who is not a free agent, and probably won't be released now that Mike Mularkey is gone; and has seen his yards-per-catch drop seven years in a row, has a history of groin problems, and a rotten attitude to boot?

Antonio Bryant - another one with an attitude problem? (Got run out of Dallas for it).

David Givens - who will probably re-up with the Patriots, who have more than enough cap space to keep him?

Joe Jurevicius - who the Seahawks plan on re-signing; and if they don't, couldn't outrun a three-toed South American sloth?

Or maybe Lurie, Banner and Reid will have a Mike McCormack midlife crisis and trade their first-round pick - or perhaps even more than that - for some veteran wide receiver who isn't a free agent?

the more ive thought about it the more i like the idea of Randle-El flying the Eagles. he's a pretty good reciever and at very least would give the Eagles a real punt returner.

as for mcnabb's "black on black crime" comment- i think thats overboard. but he's right on the money with the rest of his comments. it's about time he weighed in for the first, and probably the last, time. the key message of the interview was "if TO had a beef with me he should have told me so we could have worked it out instead of doing all this stuff behind my back" but anytime you say something about race that's going to make the headlines.